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Barclays Africa Rebrand Absa Life in Botswana To Boost Business

Barclays Africa Rebrand Absa Life in Botswana To Boost Business

Barclays Africa Group has announced it is rebranding the Absa Life operations in Botswana to Barclays Life. This has raised questions whether the banking group would also do the same to its South African insurance business in the future, reports Business Day.

According to Barclays, the brand change will enable the insurer to leverage off the larger Barclays bank retail footprint to distribute insurance products.

“We believe by operating under one particular brand we are able to provide holistic solutions to both our banking and insurance customers,” Lanz Zulu, the managing executive of Absa Financial Services Africa Holdings, said in a press statement.

In South Africa, Absa Group was renamed Barclays Africa Group on August 2 after the banking group acquired eight Barclays Africa operations–Botswana, Kenya, Ghana, Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

“In Botswana we had an Absa Life business brand and a Barclays brand. We have now decided to have only one brand in Botswana,” Zulu said.

Zula also added that under the Barclays brand, Barclays Life Botswana would be better positioned to offer additional risk and investment products, with new endowment and education products which will launched later this year.

Barclays Africa Group said in a statement that Absa Life Botswana — which launched in 2010 — was the third-largest life insurer in Botswana, with 130,000 policyholders and a 5 percent market share. It has been adding more than 2,500 policies a month, a growth it is expected to maintain.

Of the insurance business in Mozambique known as Global Alliance Absa acquired last year,  Zulu said it would remain Global Alliance. “We believe that Global Alliance is a strong brand in Mozambique and it will continue to trade like that,” he said.

Zulu also said for now Absa Life in South Africa would continue to trade as it is. But he could not say how long Absa Life in South Africa would keep its name.